Lifeboat Station, Exmouth, The Bazeley Partnership

FIRST LOOK: Bazeley’s £2.2m RNLI lifeboat station ‘mimics a storm tossed sea and the drama of rescue’

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution commissioned The Bazeley Partnership to design a new lifeboat station at the eastern end of Exmouth’s seafront Esplanade, to house an inshore lifeboat and a Mersey Class all-weather lifeboat.

The chosen site was located at the somewhat neglected and forgotten eastern fringes of the town: a parcel of land left over from road junction modifications carried out in the 1970s, and subject to a range of physical constraints. The £2.2m project was completed in June 2009 and includes a public viewing gallery and shop.

Conceptually the design reflects its coastal location and the building’s purpose. The heavy masonry walls faced in local stone and appearing as if they are a natural feature of the landscape contrast with the lighter cedar cladding used on the upper levels and rise up to a series of sharply angled roof planes finished in copper.

The external soffits and ceilings of the boat halls are also clad in cedar to give an attractive and hardwearing ribbed finish to the underside of the roof. The undulating roof form mimics a storm tossed sea and the drama of rescue, with the main ridge over the boat hall projecting outwards towards the English Channel. The design presents a different face to each direction from which it can be seen, creating a ‘building in the round’, designed to be viewed from all angles.

Mark Roberts, Associate Architect, The Bazeley Partnership

Click on the thumbnails below to download and view vector-based pdf versions of the drawings. To submit projects for consideration, please email AJbuildings@emap.com

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